Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

First published in the UK in 2011; published in the US in hardcover by Marian Wood/Putnam in 2012 and in paperback by Penguin in 2013

Noir is dark by definition, but Bernie Gunther is at his gloomiest in Prague Fatale. He's coping with the ugly events that marked him in earlier novels. It is 1941 and Bernie is back in Berlin. After harrowing experiences in Belorussia, feeling that he is merely "a blur" of the man he once was, Bernie entertains thoughts of suicide. When he looks at the mangled body of a man hit by a train, he sees himself. He is inspired to live only by the knowledge that so many Jews with so much less have soldiered on.

The mangled body is that of Geert Vranken, who came to Germany from Holland in search of employment. That his death was neither an accident nor suicide is clear from the multiple stab wounds that cover his torso. Bernie makes little progress in the death investigation until he saves a beautiful woman named Arianne Tauber from a mugging. Arianne eventually tells Bernie an intriguing story about an envelope she was hired to deliver that has now gone missing. The information causes Bernie to investigate the death of a Czech spy before he is summoned to Prague by General Heydrich, in whose pocket Bernie unwillingly resides. At that point Prague Fatale turns into a locked room murder mystery, giving Bernie a chance to exercise his considerable detective skills.

Because Prague Fatale is a murder mystery linked with a spy mystery, the plot is even more intricate than is common in the Bernie Gunther novels. The mystery's resolution isn't entirely unexpected but the setup is clever. A plot twist at the end is too often foreshadowed to be truly surprising, but it is nonetheless satisfying. A final twist seemed to be tacked on as an afterthought. The Nazi intolerance of (and hypocrisy toward) homosexuality is one of the novel's better themes, given that gay men are among the forgotten victims of Nazi tyranny.

By now, Bernie Gunther fans are so used to the character that his understandably bitter complaints about his life are taking on a broken record quality. He gives voice to his fears of what the Nazis are doing to him, and to Germany, so often that it becomes a numbing mantra. Prague Fatale would have been a tighter novel without the frequent repetition of Bernie's angst. Still, that's a relatively minor quibble. Bernie Gunther is who he is (as he often tells us), and that's what makes these novels so absorbing.

RECOMMENDED

Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani

Published by Atria Books on June 18, 2013

Children of the Jacaranda Tree spotlights characters who endure serious hardships in Iran as the direct or indirect victims of political oppression. The novel begins in 1983 with Azar, who is being transported from a prison in Tehran to a hospital where, with little assistance, she gives birth to Neda. The weeks that follow childbirth reveal the misery of caring for a baby in an uncaring environment and highlight a mother's fear of separation from her child.

As the novel jumps around in time, covering a period from 1983 to 2011, we meet other victims and survivors of tyranny. The time span gives Neda a chance to grow up and, not surprisingly, she reappears near the end of the novel. Neda has heard tales of horror recounted by her mother, relatives, and political refugees, and she seems destined (as is likely true of Sahar Delijani, who was born in the same Tehran prison as Neda) to become a bearer of their stories.

The changing time frames and characters give rise to one of the novel's central weaknesses. Character development suffers, and it becomes difficult to make a connection with the characters, because they are introduced, usually under traumatic circumstances, and then disappear as the story shifts to someone else. Their stories do not interconnect as seamlessly as they should. We learn a good bit about the brutality the characters witnessed or endured but we learn too little about the characters themselves.

Delijani's writing style is not as powerful as her subject matter. Compelling scenes are not matched by compelling prose. She strives for a literary flair that she doesn't quite attain. Some of her well-intentioned sentences come across as trite or heavy-handed. Other sentences belong in a cheesy romance novel. The picture she paints of life in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution -- the oppression of women, fear of the Revolutionary Guard -- is a familiar one, and Delijani fails to do it justice. Additional drama provided by the background of the Iran-Iraq War is too colorless to generate a strong emotional response.

There are times when Delijani's writing shows promise -- she isn't completely unskilled -- and I give her credit for telling an important story. She just doesn't tell it with the authority and power that it deserves.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

First published in Australia in 2012; published by Atria Books on August 20, 2013

The Daughters of Mars tells the story of two sisters who bond over the trauma of war, sisters who must practice "being full at ease with each other." At the same time, the novel recounts each sister's journey of self-discovery. On a larger scale, it tells of the strength of women in a world made hostile by men.

As the result of an event in which she feels morally complicit, Sally Durance carries the burden of guilt through much of The Daughters of Mars. She feels a wedge has been driven between her and her sister Naomi. Sally remains in the Valley, working as a nurse in a country hospital, while Naomi, also a nurse, returns to a more sophisticated life in Sydney. The war gives Sally a chance to escape from the bush by joining her sister in a volunteer corps of military nurses. Sally and Naomi are initially sent to Cairo, where Australian soldiers are digging trenches in anticipation of an assault by the Turks. They are soon serving on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean, and later in hospital tents on Lemnos.

The genius of Thomas Keneally's storytelling lies in the small details: the traffic jam of ambulances and trucks as the hospital ship offloads the wounded; the sounds made by a drowning horse; the differing forms of chemical warfare. Images of war and its impact on the nurses are vivid.

Book one introduces a varied cast of memorable characters, each of whom makes an impact, large or small, on one or both of the Durance sisters. Some return later in the novel; others meet their fate in war. The female characters, in particular, are strong-willed and self-sacrificing. By book two, the sisters have (unwillingly) taken separate paths. Each sister considers possibilities of romance that the war has opened up to her. To the extent that The Daughters of Mars is a story of romance, however, it reflects a larger theme: the story of a changing world, a world in which women are gaining the courage to say what they want from men.

The changing role of women, their growing role as leaders (not just in romance), is only one of several strong themes. The novel is also a contemplation of morality -- which, to those who preach it, is "really a kind of fussiness." War changes one's perception of morality; small transgressions lose their importance when compared to the vileness of battles fought with mines and mustard gas; crabbed notions of sexual morality give way to the need for physical pleasure as insulation against the daily threat of death. The Daughters of Mars is also an examination of war: its causes (young men feel "the pull of self-immolation") and, more strikingly, its casualties -- including psychological casualties, as women (and less charitable men) debate whether "shell-shocked" soldiers are ill or malingerers -- and the impact those casualties (particularly altered personalities) will have on the women who married the injured soldiers.

To a large extent, the novel is a study in contrasts: rural versus urban Australia; Australia versus Europe; colonial directness versus mannered old world reticence; fortunate health versus sudden disability; traditional roles of women versus emerging feminist thought; the love of women for men versus the love of women for each other; death by war versus death by disease. Many of the contrasts are gender-based. The Daughters of Mars also explores the different ways men and women measure themselves.

Readers who lack the patience for a story that develops at a sedate pace might have trouble staying with The Daughters of Mars. Some passages read like a travelogue as Susan sees a new world from the deck of a ship or through the windows of a train. For those who persevere, calmness gives way to intensity. The novel is, in that regard, like war: for long stretches, nothing of consequence happens, soldiers get bored, but when action erupts, it is furious. A key secondary character suffers one tragedy after another and the piling on becomes a bit much. The ending is odd (but very modern or postmodern or whatever). And while I do think The Daughters of Mars is longer than it needs to be -- again, there's just too much piling on, although tragedy is spread among many characters -- it's difficult to complain about length when a novel is written in such fine prose. In any event, this is ultimately a war story, and war stories are inauthentic if they are not about loss. The First World War was a long war, filled with losses for the countries that fought it. The Daughters of Mars accordingly tells a long sad story, but it is in many respects a compelling story.

RECOMMENDED

The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough

Published by Del Rey on July 30, 2013

An alien disease has laid waste to Earth. The disease killed most people, but about 10 percent of its victims survive in a devolved, subhuman state. They are not zombies in name, but they act like zombies. It seems to be an unwritten law of the decade that no science fiction novel is complete without zombies. In any event, the only safe place on Earth is within the protective field that extends nine kilometers from the space elevator in Darwin, Australia. The elevator is a gift from aliens who never introduced themselves. The disease is also an alien gift. Why did the aliens deliver a gift that is both wondrous and destructive? More importantly, are they coming back? Unfortunately, most of the readers' questions go unanswered. Fortunately, The Darwin Elevator (book one of The Dire Earth cycle) is a promising start to a series that presumably will provide the answers before it ends.

Skyler Luiken and his crew are among the few who are immune to the disease. They are scavengers who travel outside the protective field to find goods they can sell to inhabitants of the Orbitals. The Orbitals can only be reached by the space elevator, but unexplained power fluctuations have shut it down. The man who decides whether to restart the elevator is Russell Blackfield, the evil administrator in charge of Nightcliff, the Darwin-based station that handles elevator transit. A good bit of political drama comes from the tension between the residents of Darwin, who depend on Orbital farms for food, and the residents of the Orbitals, who depend on Darwin for water and oxygen. Blackfield's position gives him a great deal of power, but like all evil administrators, he wants more.

Tania Sharma, an Orbital scientist, and her boss, Neil Platz (who, like Blackfield, is driven by an agenda of his own), have a theory about the aliens. To test the theory (based in part on knowledge of the aliens that Platz is keeping to himself), Tania needs data that can only be acquired outside the protective field. Skyler and his crew are called upon to undertake a dangerous mission to Japan to recover the data. The plot moves forward from there.

Two things make this story work. First, the characters are fun. They aren't deep, but they have enough personality to make it easy for a reader to cheer for, or root against, them. Russell is a power-hungry, nightmare bureaucrat, while Skyler is an insecure but basically decent adventurer. Second, while the story isn't entirely original and certainly isn't ground-breaking, it moves quickly enough to maintain interest. The story is more action-dependent than idea-dependent, but the mystery of the aliens' purpose in constructing the elevator and contaminating the Earth holds sufficient intrigue to feed the reader's imagination.

Jason Hough's writing style tends to be uninspired ("Skyler led the way, moving as fast as his legs would carry him") but it's serviceable. I could have lived without all the chase scenes involving zombies (excuse me, subhumans). They detract from the mild intelligence that otherwise characterizes the story, and the conflict between Russell and Platz generates enough action without tossing subhumans into the mix. Readers who can't get enough zombies will probably disagree. In any event, it's too soon to judge the subhuman plot element. Perhaps the next book will provide a more credible explanation for the subhumans than "readers really dig zombies." In any event, I look forward to reading it.

RECOMMENDED

Mission to Paris by Alan Furst

Published by Random House on June 12, 2012; released as a trade paperback on June 4, 2013

Jack Warner of Warner Brothers sends Fredric Stahl, an Austrian-born American actor, to Paris, where he will star in a French-made movie. The timing is unfortunate for Stahl. It's 1938 and Germany is engaged in political warfare, using a variety of resources to persuade the French that it would be futile to resist Hitler. Stahl, who has no love of swastikas, would prefer to avoid discussions of politics, but Germany wants to use him as an instrument of propaganda while America wants to use him ... not as a spy, exactly, but as a source of information. About halfway into the novel, Stahl's role changes.

Whether he's describing the contents of a cruise ship newsletter or the streets of Paris, Alan Furst's attention to detail is impressive. Stahl makes brief trips to Germany, Morocco, Hungary, and Romania, but it is Paris that comes alive. The characters are well-rounded, and if not exactly memorable, they all seem real.

Mission to Paris didn't hold me in the clutches of suspense as do Furst's best books, but it is a solid, entertaining novel. A love story that starts as a subplot but eventually takes center stage is more credible than most spy novel love stories. The novel's weakness is that Stahl never seems to be in real danger. Action scenes are subdued. Stahl's ability to waltz to a happy ending, untouched by the intrigue that surrounds him, makes the story less than gripping. Still, the intricacies of political warfare are fascinating, and Mission to Paris never failed to hold my interest.

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